Abstract

To fully reveal drought propagation mechanism and effectively mitigate drought, it is of importance to synthesize investigating different types of droughts; specifically, the propagation from meteorological to agricultural droughts and from agricultural to hydrological droughts, as well as their potential driving factors. The results suggested that: (1) SPEI is a better indicator for detecting drought onset, SSI can better describe drought persistence, and SRI can depict the termination of drought; (2) the propagation time from meteorological to agricultural droughts, as well as that from agricultural to hydrological droughts, showed remarkable seasonal characteristics in the Luanhe River basin; (3) the significant influence of the Niño 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, Niño 3.4, Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AOM) on meteorological drought was concentrated in the 16–88-month periods, as well as the decadal scale of 99–164-month periods, the significant influence of Niño 4, Niño 3.4, MEI, and SOI on agricultural drought was concentrated in the 16–99-month periods, as well as the decadal scale of 99–187-month periods, and the significant influence of Niño 4 and AOM on hydrological drought was concentrated in the 16–64-month periods, as well as the decadal scale of 104–177-month periods.